SUSTAINABLE SONOMA UNITES SONOMA VALLEY'S EFFORTS TO IMPROVE OUR COMMUNITY UNDER ONE SET OF SHARED GOALS. THIS COMMON AGENDA WILL ALIGN AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES THAT COLLECTIVELY BUILD A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY.

Thank you to everyone who came out for Sustainable Sonoma’s first Learning Lab and to our wonderful panel of speakers. Over 60 community members—a diverse audience, including people facing acute housing challenges, took part in an examination of how the housing affordability issue effects our local seniors, businesses, health and healthcare, Latinos, environment, emergency response system and safety, schools, youth and families.

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All of Sonoma Valley is talking about our housing situation: why it’s a problem, and how we can fix it. To address these concerns, Sustainable Sonoma and the City of Sonoma are holding upcoming forums where locals can discuss and learn more about this important issue.

On May 14, Sustainable Sonoma held a Learning Lab at Sonoma Charter School, the first in a series designed to further the conversation with a diverse panel of Sonoma Valley community leaders. Though the Learning Labs are intended for all Sonoma Valley residents, the City of Sonoma is separately holding its own Town Hall series to focus on the city proper.

Sustainable Sonoma’s Learning Labs are focused on making the entire Sonoma Valley community more whole, connected, profitable and fair by helping more of our community members – healthcare professionals, teachers, young families, first responders, seniors, business owners and others – be able to afford to live here. Anyone living in Oakmont, Kenwood, Glen Ellen, El Verano, The Springs, Vineburg, Schellville, or the City proper is invited to attend Sustainable Sonoma’s Learning Labs to discuss the well-being of their own community.

For its part, the City of Sonoma is focused on housing within its two square miles, which is clearly critical to the future of Sonoma Valley. The City has held two town halls and plans an Interactive Community Workshop on June 20.

Valley’s Top Issue

The top issue facing the Sonoma Valley community, according to Sustainable Sonoma’s 2018 community survey, Voices of Sonoma Valley, involves homes for people who live and work here. We need more homes at multiple price points, in a diversity of sizes, while protecting our small-town feel and rural character. Individuals and organizations who agree are invited to sign the Sonoma Valley Housing Pledge.

Sustainable Sonoma’s alliance of 30 diverse community leaders has listened to this community need, and responded with a strategy to bring Sonoma Valley’s sectors together to increase, improve and protect housing within already developed areas that is affordable for people who live and work in the Valley.

Alicia Gaylord, Director of Housing Development, MidPen Housing, showed a variety of solution pathways that other communities have had success with, and the barriers they overcame to achieve those successes.

Subsequent Learning Labs will dive into the wide range of specific solutions that could be effective in Sonoma Valley, and host interactive conversations among community members, housing experts, and representatives of Sonoma Valley’s various stakeholder groups.